We take pride in doing our job in the best possible way

“With our growth strategy based on balanced and solid foundations, we started our journey in Istanbul with two people, and today we continue with 35 people, 2 departments, and 3 branches in Istanbul, New York, and most recently, Zug, Switzerland,” says Melike Aysu Gürgan, Founder and Managing Partner of Aqua Chartering, who always strives for improvement as a company.

Melike Aysu Gürgan, the founder of Aqua Chartering and a graduate of Izmir 9 Eylül University’s Maritime Business Administration, founded her company in 2017 after working for shipowner and international broker firms. Gürgan states, “With our growth strategy based on balanced and solid foundations, we started our journey in Istanbul with two people, and today we continue with 35 people, 2 departments, and 3 branches in Istanbul, New York, and most recently, Zug, Switzerland. As the Managing Partner, my main duty within our growing structure is ensuring the team’s satisfaction that guarantees their efficiency. A happy team means quality service, and we are a company in the service sector that prides itself on doing its job in the best possible way.”

From coaster to capesize tonnage

Aqua Chartering, founded in 2017, started providing ship brokerage services in the dry bulk cargo sector, mainly in the coaster tonnage in the Black Sea, Mediterranean, and Baltic regions, and today continues to serve all regions of the world from coaster to capesize tonnage. Gürgan explains, “Our ongoing contracts between South America and North America, our coal and fertilizer flows in the Pacific, our coal and mineral flows from Africa, and the growth of these flows in high volumes sometimes surprise many shipowners, especially in Northern Europe and America, due to our mostly Istanbul-based operation. This makes us proud and we like it very much.”

Teamwork at the core

Gürgan, emphasizing that they do not have strict limitations between branches, states, “Because we value teamwork. Being able to be located on different continents has given us mobility but has not divided us. Unlike many brokerage firms, we work in a dedicated teamwork setup. We are far from individualism and working with a game plan that supports each other. This way, what one person could do in 3 days can sometimes be completed by 6 people in 3 hours. This gives us perfect speed and in our continuously growing dynamic structure, emerging as a motivated team. Success is even greater when more people feel part of this success. Our world has not only grown with our branches but also with our tanker department, which we established also in February 2022. Our vision continued to expand. For companies, there are only two types of movements, you either thrive or regress. Staying constant is not an option. In our strategy, we always had the vision of horizontal and vertical growth, but for this change to be reciprocated within our structure, needs to be integrated organically. Starting our tanker department and decision to open branches occurred with the same mentality. The right people came together at the right time, at the time of need. WISTA Turkey played a huge role in this. I am confident that there is no better networking platform than WISTA.”

New Generation brokerage service

Gürgan states, “I can safely say that we have spent a considerable amount of time distinguishing the difference between perfect and flawless. We put serious effort and time thinking about what we could add to the traditional postbox brokerage service, what we could do to make it better, and what was missing in the conventional brokerage service. Based on the feedback we have received, we believe we have succeeded in distinguishing these. We set out by saying the new generation brokerage service, targeted this at every step of the way, and continued our success on the right path. Stakeholders appreciation on our work is incredibly important to us, thank you very much. We keep bettering our best with a team that is good-intentioned, transparent, solution-oriented, and fully knowledgeable about the technical details of the vessel and the job as well as the chartering side. As long as a person has enthusiasm and curiosity, continuous improvement is inevitable in every aspect of life. We proud ourselves to be a team with high enthusiasm and curiosity which harmonically compatible with our vitality.” This year, considering the new emerging needs, we quickly adapted to the fresh agenda of carbon emissions that we necessarily integrated into our lives and started carbon trading through our Swiss company to facilitate our shipowners and operators.

Plans for the future

Speaking about future plans and goals, Gürgan says, “We are a group of people that has come together to be happy and has decided to stay together to live happy lives. The concept of happiness is quite deep. Of course, it includes being proud of yourself, being with people who share the same values, continuing to be productive, trusting in the result of your work and the compensation you receive, and being proud of this. Happiness is a short word to write but has deep and long meaning; it is the most complicated dream to realize. We plan to grow and expand the regions we cover along with our horizon, with people joining us who are like us, while we continue to live happy lives. I carry the responsibility of a wonderful young team full of life and dreams on my shoulders. The highest limit we can grow to is as far as their dreams go. My unwavering belief is in this with all my sincerity.”